Let's end drawn-out issue over BALCO

The gravitational pull of the BALCO scandal is so strong in one respect that it has sent three people to jail and ruined the professional reputations of countless others, but on the other hand the big fish still swims free.

While it certainly breaks no new ground to say Barry Bonds probably knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs — and I only say "probably because I didn't witness it — and most likely lied about it when asked eight years ago."

Eight years ago? Have we been orbiting Planet BALCO since 2003?

And while I certainly don't approve of the use of steroids or lying about it, almost a decade after its beginning, it's high time for this ride to come to a merciful end.

At the heart of this whole long drawn-out process is one basic truth — Bonds saying that he didn't knowingly take a performance-enhancer is actually admitting that he did.

It's just that, à la Marion Jones, he thought it was flaxseed oil.

Right.

Most average people you know don't routinely take the wrong medication and certainly not for a long period of time, so no professional athlete is going to do that, either.

In 2003, Bonds was on top of the baseball world. He and the San Francisco Giants were coming off a World Series appearance in which the slugger finally shook off the postseason underachiever label and had even warmed up to the media a bit.

Things were going so well.

So of course he wasn't going to freely admit, to a grand jury no less, what he'd done to get to that point.

Would you?

And, especially in these economic times, is it really worth millions of taxpayer dollars to force an answer to a question we already know the answer to?

The big fish still swims free for the moment, but Captain Ahab is closing in.